Do technical degrees limit you?

Student Lounge College Life
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Your links prove none of what you claim. They show some very accomplished alums of a liberal arts college. That’s it.</p>

<ol>
<li>They don’t tell us what percent of “successful” individuals come from such backgrounds, so your “most” in post #125 is not supported at all.</li>
<li>They don’t [immediately] tell us what majors those people studied, which is after all the topic of discussion.<br></li>
<li>As collegebound_guy points out, looking at the ultra-successful is not a terribly good way of evaluating the most probable outcomes of a decision.</li>
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<p>Neither do technical majors AFAIK. You seem to think once you get your technical degree you’re set- you’ll go out and find the cure for cancer. Unless you’re going for your PhD or you’re a scientist then I’m sorry to say you’re a tool just as important as the next garbage truck driver.</p>

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<p>Neither do technical majors AFAIK. You seem to think once you get your technical degree you’re set- you’ll go out and find the cure for cancer. Unless you’re going for your PhD or you’re a scientist then I’m sorry to say you’re a tool just as important as the next garbage truck driver. ~ Schaden</p>

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<p>Ok, let’s take this statement further.</p>

<p>Earlier I mentioned my father was an engineer. He only has his Bachelors degree in engineering. He’s worked as an engineer for 35 years, will retire in a couple years.</p>

<p>He has worked on designing sewage systems (new community developments), irrigations sytems, and even locomotives (GE), among dozens of other things. </p>

<p>Now let me get this straight. That makes him a “tool”, and he is comparable to a garbage truck driver? </p>

<p>My wife, a nurse - another technical degree works on her hospitals labor and delivery unit. Everyday she helps deliver new born babies, some healthy, some not. </p>

<p>I highly doubt if you had a child born with a severe birth defect or mental disability, you would be willing to call your nurse a “tool.” </p>

<p>Again, in your opinion - she is also a garbage truck driver?</p>

<p>A friend of mine is a Biomedical Engineer. He helps design prosthetic limbs for amputees, including many Veterans and children born with birth defects.</p>

<p>Would you also compare him to a garbage truck driver? Is he also a “tool?”</p>

<p>My cousin is an environmental engineer. He is currently developing safe drilling methods to extract Marcellus Shale natural gas. Do some research on Marcellus Shale gas, it might be what powers our country for the next 20 years.</p>

<p>Is he also a garbage man?</p>

<p>If they are the garbage men, then you are just the garbage…only we can’t fit you in a bag.</p>

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<p>The point is that you can be just as useless as an engineer. Being an engineer or scientist doesn’t defacto make you relevant or “good” to society. Plenty of engineers dedicate their careers to making useless products.</p>

<p>BIGeastBEAST, almost all of your posts are anecdotal. That’s wonderful, but doesn’t really prove anything in the bigger picture.</p>

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<p>I just think you’re comparing bones to blood- we all have our usefulness and one job is not better than the other.</p>

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<p>lol…and there are just as many Liberal Arts majors dedicated to useless products and services as well, most likely many many more because their skills have no utility.</p>

<p>But my points stands, calling people with technical skills “tools” and “garbage men” is rude and ignorant.</p>

<p>Pandem, go back to your corner.</p>

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<p>I just think you’re comparing bones to blood- we all have our usefulness and one job is not better than the other. ~ Schaden</p>

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<p>You just said that technical majors with no PHD’s are comparable to garbage men, ****. </p>

<p>Either way, some jobs are better or more important than the other. The job of a heart surgeon is more important than the job of a “sports marketer.” However, I still wouldn’t be as ignorant as you and start calling them tools and saying they are garbage men.</p>

<p>BTW, we need garbage men. What we don’t need is pretentious lil snobs like you.</p>

<p>Don’t try to shift it on me, you lil weasle.</p>

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<p>Unless you’re going for your PhD or you’re a scientist then I’m sorry to say you’re a tool just as important as the next garbage truck driver. ~ Schaden</p>

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<p>Can you respond to any point without personal attacks? Sounds pretty rude and ignorant to me. </p>

<p>We’re not talking about liberal arts majors, we’re talking about engineers. Being an engineer doesn’t automatically make you “better” or “worse” than any other person. This has nothing to do with liberal arts majors.</p>

<p>Also, I’d like to hear your vision of the future / goal for society. So many people (yourself included) seem to paint a depressing, technology-oriented world where there is no place for art or expression. Hopefully, at some point you’ll realize there’s more to life than getting a job and putting in your 50 years of hard labor.</p>

<p>Science and engineering deals with the “how.”
Art and philosophy deals with the “why.”</p>

<p>Who cares about the “how” when you don’t have a “why”?</p>

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<p>I haven’t seen anyone paint a picture of a world where there is no place for art or expression. I would like to see a world where one of the most important marks of sophistication is declaring your love for fine arts and the humanities, but that’s not the same thing.</p>

<p>And your argument, while repeated often, makes no sense. I can’t stand art or philosophy, and I haven’t noticed some gaping hole in my life. I simply choose not to think about questions like “Why do we exist?”, in the same way that you choose not to think about questions like “How does gravity work?”</p>

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<p>With or without any degree you can do anything… A degree does not make you. It’s more of where you study, how you study, and who you study with.</p>

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<p>Hey pandem,</p>

<p>I agree that there is aplace for art and expression. However, there seems to be a flood of English/Liberal Arts majors, way too many than the market needs. At my school alone, the social sciences account for 15% of all majors while Engineering majors only account for 9%. That’s kind of skewed. </p>

<p>Liberal arts are definitely needed, but in the U.S., we have a shortage of Engineers/hard science majors and an overabundance of English/Liberal Arts majors. We need both, but there needs to be a balance.</p>

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<p>That’s not the point and you know it. Asking obscure questions like “why do we exist” is entirely different than “why do I wake up every day to do my job?” If you have no better reason than “to pay the bills” than I’m afraid you are lacking depth as a person. </p>

<p>Regardless, this isn’t a VS. match. Only on a college board is science and art divided and pitted against each other. Obviously “how” and “why” are important. Just realize that without a purpose you’re nothing but a robot. And without a “how” you’re nothing but an animal.</p>

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<p>Amen.</p>

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<p>I started to bring this up before. We’re leaving out art and design majors, which are inherently creative and expression-oriented. I really feel that the vast majority of liberal arts majors aren’t art or creativity-oriented. Many are just as technical as engineering, except their field is anthropology, psychology, or English instead of physics.</p>

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<p>So what? If they don’t gain the know-how, what does it matter if they are just as technically capable?</p>

<p>Those majors (philosophy, psychology, english) aren’t technical, so that potential doesn’t really matter.</p>

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<p>There’s a reason why most schools require their students to take courses in the liberal arts, in addition to courses in whatever they are majoring in. You don’t need a pure liberal arts degree to be educated in the liberal arts. </p>

<p>As far as I am concerned, one doesn’t even really need to go college to become educated in a cultural sense. It only requires basic reading and comprehension skills and an ability to tell fact from fiction, opinion from fact, etc. That is the heart of the purpose of a liberal arts education is to give people the ability to filter out the noise from the white noise. To critically think and analyze. If anyone wants to be trained in that, all they need to do is to read a few books in either philosophy or history and debate with people on the Internet over such subjects.</p>

<p>If high school was as rigorous as it once was, then people wouldn’t even need to go to college to obtain an education in the liberal arts. Unfortunately, so many are going to college these days that a degree is practically required to obtain employment.</p>

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<p>I don’t see how- after all, maybe the heart surgeons main customers are sports marketers?</p>

<p>Or maybe…the heart surgeon’s real passion is life is sports. Well if we didn’t have sports marketers, then sports wouldn’t have enough money to broadcast on live television, and then the heart surgeon wouldn’t be able to watch his favorite team the night before, and he would have lost all motivation to complete medical school. Therefore sports marketers are vital to society.</p>

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<p>One can make the argument that outside of actual hands-on work that requires material/space, everything can be learned from a book/text.</p>

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<p>Engineers think they’re superior because what they do makes lives easier.</p>

<p>Liberal arts majors think they’re superior because they have a better understanding of questions such as “what’s is the meaning of life?”</p>

<p>Who’s right? Well, the answer depends on your goals in life. If your goal is to give back to society by designing new technology, then engineering is the clear choice. If your goal in life is to better understand yourself and the human specie, then a liberal arts major is more appropriate. Bottom line: this exchange of “we’re better than you” is pointless.</p>

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<p>I don’t see how- after all, maybe the heart surgeons main customers are sports marketers?</p>

<p>Or maybe…the heart surgeon’s real passion is life is sports. Well if we didn’t have sports marketers, then sports wouldn’t have enough money to broadcast on live television, and then the heart surgeon wouldn’t be able to watch his favorite team the night before, and he would have lost all motivation to complete medical school. Therefore sports marketers are vital to society. ~ Schaden</p>

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<p>That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.</p>

<p>Someday when you have a heart attack and need a triple bypass, I would love to be in the operating room and ask you this question all over again.</p>

<p>Or if you ever had the tragedy of seeing a newborn’s heart give out, then watch a doctor bring the infant back to life while their parents watch in most soul-crushing 60 seconds anyone could ever suffer through, I bet you’d feel differently.</p>

<p>Then I’d like for you to tell me that some sports marketing has the same value to society.</p>

<p>But then again, those nurses rescuing the dying infant are just “garbage men” in your opinion anyways, right?</p>

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<p>What would you rather have, a natural birth or a baby being born in a pile of garbage?</p>